Profile of an Entrepreneur Essay Example

Along with all this he also had to help support his family because money was lacking due to the depression. Sam's job was to milk the family cow, bottle the milk, and then deliver the surplus of it customers and then went off to deliver newspapers afterwards as a part-time job by the age of twelve. During this time it would have been easy for Sam to just give up on school and go to work full time so he could further help his family during the depression.

He knew how his family was struggling to make ends meet, so he decided he was going to stay in school and attend the University of Missouri (Wikipedia Encyclopedia). Adult Years Sam majored in Economics at the University of Missouri. He had to work extra hard to pay for the college since money was tight. Sam waited tables in exchange for meals so he could eat; life guarded at the university’s pool, and also delivered newspapers. When he was not studying or working he was either at his fraternity in which he was an officer, or at a student government meeting because he was a member of the student senate, or satisfying his duties as an ROTC Officer.

On Sundays he was President of a Sunday School Class where many of his fellow classmates attended and worshipped together. Sam Walton was also in the National Honor Society.When Sam Walton graduated in 1940 he was voted the permanent President of his class (Fitzgerald 2). Sam did not wait long after graduation to find work.

Just three days after he received his diploma he entered the retail world working at JcPenney's in

Des Moines, Iowa as a management trainee earning a salary of $75. 00 a month (Bickford 2). He learned a great deal when working at JcPenney’s and received much experience. In 1942 Walton resigned from JcPenney’s to wait to be inducted into the military services for World War II. In the mean time, Sam took a job in a Du Pont munitions plant near Tulsa, Oklahoma.

This was lucky for him because while doing this he meet his future wife, Helen Robson in April of 1942. Sam and Helen married on February 14, 1943. In 1944, their first son, Samuel Robson (Rob), was born, John Thomas was born in 1946, James Carr (Jim), born in 1948, and Alice born in 1949 (Fitzgerald 2). Soon after they were married in 1942, Sam went to serve in the US Army intelligence corps in the continental United States, supervising security at prisoner of war camps and aircraft plants. He left his mark here too; by the time Sam was discharged from the war he was ranked as captain.

He left the military in 1945 (Wikipedia Encyclopedia 2). Sam decided he wanted to own his own department store. He borrowed $20,000. 00 from his father-in-law, L. S.

Ronson- a banker and rancher. He also used his $5,000 that he was able to save from the military and made his dream of having a department store a reality in the fall of 1945. He purchased a franchisee of the Butler Brothers, which consisted of two chains in Newport. One chain was the Federated department stores, which were small department stores and then the Ben Franklin variety stores.

Sam’s store was a variety store and

with the help of Butler Brothers, his store led in sales and profits in the six-state region (Wikipedia Encyclopedia 2). Sam started his first store with the same principles that we can still see today at Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores. He stocked all the shelves with a wide range of goods with very low prices, he kept his store centrally located so it was easily accessible to many customers, stayed open later than most stores especially during Christmas and Thanksgiving seasons, and experimented with discount merchandising which is the reason he led in sales in profits.He would buy straight from the wholesaler, which enabled him to lower his price per item, to sell a greater quantity of goods, thereby escalating his sales volume and profits (Fitzgerald 2). All these ideas were new to businesses, however Sam caught on fast and was able to use them to his advantage.

When his lease was up his landlord would not renew the lease because he wanted the business for his son because Sam’s store was such a success. Sam had to sell the store, but he made a profit of over $50,000. 00 in January of 1951 (Wal-Mart Story). This did not stop the very determined Sam from continuing with his dream.Before the sale was even finalized Sam had already started looking for a new place in town. He didn’t have much luck in finding a place right away until 1950, where he found and purchased a store in Bentonville, Arkansas, which ended up being called Walton's 5 & 10 (Wal-Mart Story).

This store was also a member of the Butler Brothers' Ben Franklin chain. The place he bought

required a great deal of improvements before it would be able to open, this did not set Sam Walton back, he jumped right in there and got the renovations finished. In July of 1950, he introduced Walton 5 & 10.He staged his first sales advertising; called the "remodeling sale" and then the following March he had the grand opening. During this time Sam ran both the store in Newport and the one in Bentonville. In 1951, after his landlord took over the Newport store his family and him moved to Bentonville (Bickford 2).

They made there selves at home in the community and became quite involved with town activities. Shortly after they arrived Walton already served as president of Rotary Club and president of the chamber of commerce. He was elected to the city council and served on the hospital board. He was again in his life well involved in the community and helped it out in many ways: one being he started a baseball league for little kids (Wikipedia Encyclopedia) (Fitzgerald). Sam was a very busy man and most people would not even have the time to accomplish all he was doing, but he had a lot of energy and decided to open a second store in Fayetterville.

It was called Walton 5 & 10 but this time it was not apart of the Ben Franklin franchise. It became just as successful as his other store with the help of a experienced manager. He shared a percentage of his profits with the new manager to lure him to work there. Sam visited the store weekly so he could make sure that it was run, as he

wanted (Fitzgerald 3). Mr. Walton was always looking for new ways to improve business. One of his ideas was a new thing called self-service where customers could pay for everything at one time at the front of the store instead of buying things separately throughout the store. Some other ideas he had to keep customers happy were that he had a wide assortment of goods, had special promotions, kept the place well lighted and clean, demanded that the staff be loyal by sharing a percentage of the profits with the employees (Fitzgerald 3). Sam opened more stores with the help of his brother, Bud, father-in-law and brother-in-law as time passed.

In 1954 he opened a quite profitable store with his brother in Ruskin Heights, a suburb near Kansas City in a shopping center. It was successful but he didn’t like having a store in a shopping center as well. Sam decided to go back and just focus on retail business, instead of the shopping center business. Sam started opening larger stores that were called Walton's Family Center. To keep management at the top of their game, Sam offered them the opportunity to become limited partners if they would invest in his store.

This was they were to oversee the stores and then were able to invest a maximum of $1000. 00 in new outlets as they opened. Managers focused on trying to keep profits at a maximum wanted to keep them manager skills fresh because they in part had something to do with the business (Fitzgerald 4). His new tactics to managing retail stores proved to work and be very successful. In 1962 Sam and his brother

owned 16 variety stores in Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas. To find locations to put a store in it was said that he would fly around different towns in small airplanes to scope the land and activity.

These new ideas and new management techniques is how Wal-Mart got it start and is why they are unlike any other store today. Sam always said that the customer was always right and impounded that into each of his employees’ heads. All of his stores would have customer friendly features such as greeters, and a friendly, family oriented environment (Sanford 2). The first Wal-Mart store was opened in 1962 in Arkansas and quickly became the world’s number one retail store. Helen and he had to put up everything they had to be able to open the store including their house and all of their property. They did this because the Ben Franklin stores did not like his idea of opening discount stores in small towns.

Wal-Mart's success has given many people today an opportunity for a bigger job market. Wal-Mart today employs more than 1. 8 million associates worldwide in more than 3,900 stores in the US and more than 2,700 throughout the rest of the world. His kind ways and charisma made the majority of his employees like and trust the man making them try to please him. The reason for its popular success today is still because of the values Sam Walton started in the 1950’s (Wal-Mart Story).

The stores are still known by hometown identity, each person is welcomed personally by People Greeters, each store honors a graduating high school senior with a college scholarship, bake sales to benefit

a local charity, associates determine where charitable funds are donated, and the prices are always low and customers do not have to wait for a sale to see savings. This is only to name a few of the things that Wal-Mart does for the community. The Wal-Mart community outreach programs are steered by local associates who grew up in the area and understand its needs. In 1983, Wal-Mart opened the large, Sam’s Wholesale Clubs, the successful cash-and-carry, membership warehouse centers (Sanford). We now have super center Wal-Marts, Sam’s club, and market centers all focusing on delivering low prices and a wide range of products. Sam Walton spent most of his life unnoticed to his delight, hardly any one even knew who he was that was until Forbes Magazine named Sam the richest man in America in 1985 and in 1990 Wal-Mart became the nation’s top retailer (Sanford 2).

Sam Walton made quite an impression on everyone he came in contact with through his determined attitude and hard-working skills. Sam Walton has done so much for the retail world it is unbelievable with all his ideas that we still use today. In March of 1992 he received the Medal of Freedom from President George Bush because he as gone beyond what any other owner or manager has done with the retail business. Even with his wealth he lived a consistent life. He drove an old pick up truck and wore baseball caps (Sanford 2).

When you are rich and successful you are bound to be disliked. There is no exception for Sam Walton.His management style has been criticized for years, but the people that do not like or

use his stores are at a huge minority (Sanford 2). Sam stated in his autobiography “If you believe in your dreams, there’s no limit to what you can do. ” This was his attitude throughout life.

He also said "We're all working together; that's the secret. And we'll lower the cost of living for everyone, not just in America, but we'll give the world an opportunity to see what it's like to save and have a better lifestyle, a better life for all. We're proud of what we've accomplished; we've just begun"(The Wal-Mart Story).In 1992, American legend, Sam Walton left the world with these words about himself, “I would like to be remembered as a good friend to most everyone whose life I’ve touched; as someone who has maybe meant something to them and helped them some way (Bickford 2). ” Sam Walton passed away on April 5, 1992 in Little Rock, Arkansas, but his memory and his successful ideas will be with the nation forever.

He left his interest in all the stores to his wife and children who still run them today (Wikipedia Encyclopedia 2). He will always remain a very successful entrepreneur. Many businesses are copying his management skills. He truly changed the retain industry.

References

1. (Fitzgerald 4Bickford, Jim.American Dreams (2002) An American Original. http://www. usdreams. com/Walton34.html
2. Sanford, Ruth. Sam Walton (2002) http://novaonline. nvcc. edu/eli/evans/his135/Events/Walton92/Walton92.htm
3. The Wal-Mart Story: http://asms. k12. ar. us/armem/clark/index2.htm
4. Wikipedia Enclopedia. Sam Walton: http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Sam_Walton
5. Fitzgerald, Kelly: “The Model Manager of Wal-Mart” http://www. stfrancis.edu/ba/ghkickul/stuwebs/bbios/biograph/walton1. htm